UI Press | Edited by Michael J. Pfeifer | Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South

Lynching Beyond Dixie

American Mob Violence Outside the South

Lynching as a national phenomenon

In recent decades, scholars have explored much of the history of mob violence in the American South, especially in the years after Reconstruction. However, the lynching violence that occurred in American regions outside the South, where hundreds of persons, including Hispanics, whites, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans died at the hands of lynch mobs, has received less attention. This collection of essays by prominent and rising scholars fills this gap by illuminating the factors that distinguished lynching in the West, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic. Contributors compare the episodes and patterns of lynching in these regions with those that occurred in the South, placing the violence within a broader context of the development of American criminal justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The volume adds to a more comprehensive history of American lynching and will appeal to all readers interested in the history of violence across the varied regions of the United States.

Contributors are Jack S. Blocker Jr., Brent M. S. Campney, William D. Carrigan, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Dennis B. Downey, Larry R. Gerlach, Kimberley Mangun, Helen McLure, Michael J. Pfeifer, Christopher Waldrep, Clive Webb, and Dena Lynn Winslow.

"Theoretically sophisticated, well documented, and superbly written, this volume provides an in-depth examination of lynching outside the South and will stand out as a fresh and unique contribution to recent scholarship on lynching."--Margaret Vandiver, author of Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South

"A must read for all historians who work on lynching and mob violence in American history."--Manfred Berg, author of Popular Justice: A History of Lynching in America

Michael J. Pfeifer is an associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and at the CUNY Graduate Center and the author of Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 and The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching.

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